Iran-linked cyber threats growing as anti-Israel campus activism surges, experts warn
Iran-linked cyberattacks pose growing risks to Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including groups on university campuses, experts warn.
Experts have said that, as anti-Israel sentiment rises in higher education, so do digital threats targeting Jewish organizations, with hackers exploiting online spaces to launch attacks.
Iran-linked cyberattacks pose growing risks to Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including groups on university campuses, experts warn.
Experts have said that, as anti-Israel sentiment rises in higher education, so do digital threats targeting Jewish organizations, with hackers exploiting online spaces to launch attacks.
“I would be really surprised to see numbers that didn’t increase,” said Annie Fixler, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, according to the Jewish News Syndicate. Fixler highlighted that Iran-backed hackers “target a broad range of enemies,” including Jewish organizations worldwide.
Fixler compared the cyberattacks to anti-Israel rhetoric on college campuses.
“You’re going to get attacks from anyone and everyone, just as we’ve seen sort of anti-Israel sentiments on college campuses increase and we’ve seen pro-Palestinian movements that have targeted Jewish organizations in vandalism or protests or things like that,” she said.
Previously, officials have investigated potential ties between Iran and the anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). Last year, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines noted that “Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza,”
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, reported direct threats and cyber intrusions. “These threats are not theoretical,” Klein said to the Jewish News Syndicate. “They are real and escalating.”
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Campus Reform has reported about other kinds of attacks against Jewish organizations on college campuses. For instance, a Hillel organization near San Francisco State University (SFSU) was vandalized last December by pro-Palestine activists with anti-Semitic graffiti.
“DEATH TO WESTERN IMPERIALISM” read one of the phrases spray-painted onto the group’s property.
A Hillel organization at Simmons University in Boston was also the target of vandalism last fall. The group’s sukkah, a temporary hut for a Jewish holiday, was sprayed with the words “Gaza Liberation Sukkah.”
Campus Reform has contacted the Zionist Organization of America for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
